I am posting this here because nothing else makes sense

I had the same thing happen in my dart and except I had a wire totally burn the insulation off and smoked out the interior of the car .....it was a wire going to the emergency light flasher and it appears, even though its still under investigation that the broken up turn signal switch in the column had something to do with it.

this car had wiring "work" done by the previous owner so it don't surprise me.

maybe check if there any wiring mods done before that might be suspect.

sorry to hear of your trouble and glad the car is not damaged and most of all ...you didn't get hurt.

we can replace car parts all day, but we cant fix injured people so easy ...so be careful.